A Nobel Assault?

I doubt I am the only one unsurprised at Harold Pinter's success in winning the Nobel Prize for Literature- but it's strange.

Until a couple of years ago I'd all but forgotten Pinter- he was one of those irrelevant and inferior representatives of modern patriotic/socialist British literature (think Hughes, Bennett, Loach etc.) I'd had foisted on me at school and university and had just about managed to vomit out of my memory. Then came the Iraq war and suddenly Pinter was hip and relevant. He produced some 'ravishing' poetry which can be read here.

What I couldn't believe was how the BBC managed to mention the prize he's won without pointing out that Pinter and Al Baradei (the peace prize winner) shared the same anti-Iraq war viewpoint. They mention that Pinter is controversial and was a fierce critic of Reagan and Thatcher, but they don't mention his most obvious claim to recent fame- which, it appears, is generally the main consideration for the publicity conscious Nobellers. To me it's almost indisputable that Pinter would have failed to win the Nobel Prize were it not for his anti-Iraq war stance (not that I give a monkey's about the Nobel Prize, but people do).

An aside- I find it particularly obnoxious that the nobel panel chose to say (and were quoted by the Beeb saying) that Pinter '"uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".'

This is absolutely what he has not done. He has been the metaphorical aider and abettor of the literal oppressor in the literal closed room, with a literal victim- in Iraq.

Update!!!- major stealth edit alert!!! Now they tell us 'The playwright is known for speaking out on issues like the war on Iraq'. And then they eulogise. (+ I edited my own post- I meant to say unsurprised earlier.)